Can you be too creative?

Would you fall out of your chair if I said, “Yes?”

Strap yourself in, amigo.

Yes. You can be too creative.

Fine Art vs Commercial Art

That’s a terrible heading. It assumes that one is better than the other. Maybe I’ll fix it by the time I post this. Probably not.

To illustrate (heh) my point about being too creative, I want to show you a beautiful piece of art I saw online today by Leah Piken Kolidas. See it here.

It’s awesome, right? This is fine art. It’s creativity defined. Personally, I would never put a limit on creating with this kind of work. It communicates something from deep within the artist. The rest of us can decide what it means on a very personal level. Different interpretations don’t lessen the gorgeousness of this piece.

Commercial art is different. Commercial art is advertising, logos, signs. They are created to communicate something very specific. There isn’t supposed to be guesswork or interpretation involved. It’s created specifically to evoke the same set of emotions or instant understanding of a message to a wide group of people.

Too much creativity can kill the message.

Say you’re talking about savings. Close your eyes and think about an image that would represent that. What did you get?

You may have seen “piggy bank,” or “dollar sign,” or “bank vault.”

Did you see… lemon? No? Koala bear? Nope? How about… motorcycle?

Let’s think outside the box. Let’s get creative, people!

Oy. I almost threw up when I typed that.

It’s hard to come up with an image that communicates your message and not latch onto the first cliche image that strikes your consciousness. I do this every day, coming up with the easy cliche image. And then I think, no! You can’t do that, it’s too easy. Think of something better here. It needs to be more.

Be more… what? Creative?

The thing is, there’s a reason those cliches pop up in our little brains. The fact that they pop up in so many of our brains means something. Don’t fight it just for the sake of being more creative.

When you’re creating an ad about savings, you could get very creative and use an image of a three-legged cow looking in a mailbox. I’m sure there’s a story there, but if you have to explain the story to a mass audience, it’s lost its effectiveness.

So take “piggy bank” and be more creative within that framework. If it’s a retirement savings account, put a piggy bank on a Harley with another piggy bank in a sidecar. Piggy banks on a cruise ship.

That’s where you can get to have fun and flex your creative muscles. Just don’t throw the piggy out with the Harley.

See? Cliche. Updated.

So can you be too creative? Yes. Remember when you’re designing your logo or the street sign for your shop, the name of the game is easy communication. If you get too creative, you risk losing your audience.